The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
by Thomas E. Woods

The typical American student leaves high school (or college) with a head full of misconceptions about American history: the success of entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller was founded on exploitation of the poor; FDR's New Deal pulled America out of the Great Depression; Senator Joe McCarthy's claims that Communist sympathizers had infiltrated the State Department were largely unfounded. This book is a good corrective to the biased and erroneous accounts often found in school textbooks.

In addition to covering the basics, Woods reveals a number of lesser-known fallacies. One chapter demonstrates that policies have had unfortunate consequences for blacks and whites alike. Brown v. Board of Education led to the disastrous practice of forced busing. In the heyday of forced busing, the average bused child in Los Angeles spent almost two hours per day on a bus. Both black and white parents came to criticize the practice.

One of the best chapters is entitled "Yes, Communist sympathizers really existed." While the liberals denied the existence of Communists in the U.S. government, the author quotes liberal author Nicholas von Hoffman as finally admitting in 1996 that two generations of high school and college students have been falsely taught about the '40s and '50s. He admitted that new evidence, such as the Venona files, proves that "Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, executed in June 1953 for atomic espionage, were guilty; Alger Hiss, a darling of the establishment, was guilty; and that dozens of lesser known persons such as Victor Perlo, Judith Coplon and Harry Gold, whose innocence of the accusations made against them had been a tenet of leftist faith for decades, were traitors, or, at the least, ideological vassals of a foreign power."

Other topics of interest include the Second World War (yes, FDR did scheme to get us into war with Japan), and the sorry exploits of recent presidents like JFK and LBJ ("Landslide Lyndon" stole his 1948 senate race - a key stepping stone to the presidency).

This book is feisty and opinionated, and even conservative readers may not agree with all of its conclusions. However, it makes an excellent counterweight to the liberal bias prevalent in today's schools.

(Regnery Publishing Inc., 2004, 246 pps, $19.95)